Articles   Design and graphics   What for it is necessary Flash on a site?

For ten years of the development technology Flash by company Macromedia has won unprecedented popularity all over the world, and, accordingly, in the Internet. In many respects, certainly, it is due to the big functionalities at the compact size of a received Flash-clip and to that some time Flash-player has been included in distribution kit Microsoft Windows.

Today flash is actively used in the Internet, but not always using of this technology by development and information filling of a web-site is justified. We shall consider the factors constraining universal use Flash:

• Speed of loading of page and the consumed traffic. The size of files of received clips is more, than for static images. Accordingly, speed of loading of all site, as a rule, is reduced. Besides for the visitor the consumed traffic from a site increases, that is especially actual for the Russian users.
• Presence on a computer of user installed Flash-player. Unfortunately, it is installed Flash-player not at all users. Thus, it is necessary to remember, what not all visitors of your site can see it (and someone even will not want), creating Flash-animation. Professionally developed web-sites, as a rule, define presence of Flash-player and, in case of its absence, deduce alternative representation of a site, without animation.
• Features of perception of animation by human eye. The attention of any person is involved more with movement, dynamics, than a static picture. It is necessary to remember, that excessive animation on a web-site (especially unreasonable) can disorient visitors. In general, in order to prevent such mistakes, the developer should think over at a design stage of a site what information is necessary to allocate for visitors of the future site and what information will be interesting to them.

Certainly, technology Flash, has also the advantages, namely:

• Interactivity. An opportunity of use in a clip schedules, video, music, program management of behaviour of an animation clip (with ActionScript);
• Effect. As it was already spoken, the attention of any person is involved more with movement and dynamics, than a static picture;
• Multiplatfom (for today Flash-player is compatible with operational systems Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Mac OS 9.x, Mac OS 10.x);
• High compactness of received animation clips.

Knowing about merits and demerits of technology Flash, it is necessary precisely represent necessity and an opportunity of its using for each concrete case and for each specific goal. We shall consider below those cases when use Flash is allowable and when it is undesirable.

In what cases use Flash is proved?

1. By development of advertising banners as animation in format Flash is always more compact, than in format GIF, and dynamics is necessary at show of the advertising information.
2. By development of information banners as accentuation of attention of the user on the interesting information is the correct approach.
3. At creation of promo-sites, in the greater degree are advertising any goods or service, are than containing enough great volumes of the information.
4. At creation of special effect on a site but provided that a site will be correct to be displayed at the visitors who are not having installed Flash-player.
5. At creation of special web-services.

In what cases it is not recommended to use Flash?

1. As an element of navigation on a site (use is supposed as a duplicating element of navigation). An example of wrong using of technology as it is not strange, is the site of developer Flash - www.macromedia.com. You simply will not see items of the main menu without Flash-player.
2. On entrance page - prompt of a site. Strictly speaking, such pages don't recommend to create, as they do not carry any semantic loading.
3. It is not recommended to create web-sites entirely in flash because visitors in that case lose many opportunities connected to navigation on a site (for example, use of such buttons of a web-browser as "Forward" и "Back").

The author of that article has stated the ideological point of view on using of technology flash in the Internet. In practice small deviations in this or that side from the above described rules, certainly, are possible.

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